%\X %$l£m0X%KttX. 



Iptitip |J, gjtlt&xiilKm 



"there's one we love to call our own, 

Renowned by sword and pen, 
His plume alone, where'er it shone, 

Was worth ten thousand men; 
'Twas he snatched victory from defeat, 

our hearts' commander still; 
whene'er we meet his name we'll greet, 

Our matchless Little Phil." 



7lu. ! -cZ^u^t^ 



PROCEEDINGS 



SENATE AND ASSEMBLY 



irtate of |Jew ^oxU T 



ON THE LIFE AND SERVICES OF 



Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, 



HELD AT THE 



CAPITOL, APRIL 9, 1889. 



ALBANY: 
JAMES B. LYON, STATE PRINTER, 



%.* 



(.1 



^ 



COMMUNICATION, 



Washington, April 1, 1889. 

Gen. N. M. Curtis, Chairman Joint Committee. 
General : 

Through the courtesy of your committee I am in 
receipt of your invitation for myself and children to attend 
the services to be held by the Legislature of New York in 
memory of my husband, the late General Sheridan, at 
Albany, April ninth. It is with extreme regret that I am 
obliged to say we can not be present ; illness in my family 
preventing all possibility of our taking the journey to 
Albany. In our absence, however, I am sure the memorial 
services will be none the less impressive and sincere ; so 
in advance of the occasion the widow and children of 
General Sheridan would be greatly indebted to you, 
General, should you at an appropriate time, convey to the 
Legislature their deepest gratitude for this official and 
sacred recognition of the career of one whose entire life 
was devoted to his country's welfare. 

With great respect, I am truly yours. 

Mrs. PHILIP H. SHEKIDAN. 






PROCEEDINGS 



Legislature of the State of New York, 



ON THE LIFE AND SERVICES OF 



wen. Ifkilip |£. J>hcrixXaru 



STATE OF NEW YOKK : 

In Assembly, 
Albany, January 10, 1889. 

Mr. Cuktis offered the following preambles and 
resolutions : 

Whereas, Phllip Henry Sheridan, a native of the 
State of New York, general commanding the armies of 
the United States, recently died ; and 

Whereas, It is eminently fitting for the Legislature to 
take formal action to give expression to the high estimate 
in which his services are held, and the affectionate regard 
with which his memory is cherished by all the people, 
and to the end that there shall be set before the youth 
the native qualities, the professional education, the self- 
training and discipline by which one of the most distin- 
guished military captains of the age was formed, an 
officer who, passing through every grade of the military 
service, was a skillful tactician, organizer and leader of 



%\\ %$icmovimu. 



battalions, a commander in the field whose inspiriting 
magnetism filled weary limbs with the unchilled vigor of 
youth, and fainting hearts with the glow and determination 
of seizing victory in the decisive charge ; therefore, be it 

Resolved (if the Senate concur), That a joint committee 
of five Senators and nine Members of Assembly be 
appointed by the presiding officers of the respective 
houses to arrange for fitting joint memorial services in 
commemoration of the patriotic citizen and illustrious 
soldier, Philip Henry Sheridan. 

The foregoing resolution was duly adopted, and 
Mr. Speaker appointed as such committee, on 
the part of the House, Messrs. Curtis, Batcheller, 
Saxton, Ainsworth, Moffit, Mead, Martin, Long- 
ley and Creamer. 

By order of the Assembly. 

C. A. CHICKEMNG, 
Clerk. 

STATE OF NEW YORK : 

In Senate, 
Albany, January 15, 1889. 

The foregoing resolution was duly concurred in, 
and the President appointed as such committee, on 
the part of the Senate, Senators Vedder, Murphy, 
O'Connor, Worth and Kellogg. 

By order of the Senate. 

JOHN S. KENYON, 

Clerk 



PROC EEDINGS 



Senate and Assembly 



JOINT SESSION 



ACADEMY OF MUSIC, APRIL 9, 1890. 



PROCEEDINGS. 



Academy of Music, April 9, 1889. 

The Legislature having met in joint session in 
the Academy of Music, in the city of Albany, in 
pursuance of arrangements made by the Joint Memo- 
rial Committee, Gen. N. M. Curtis, chairman of 
said committee, called the meeting to order, and 
introduced Gen. Martin T. McMahon, who had 
been invited to preside. 

Gen. McMahon, on taking the Chair, spoke as 
follows : 

Honor shown to the memory of the illustrious 
dead has been in all times a distinguishing 
feature of civilized communities, and in the very 
earliest days, when courage and genius were 
combined with love of country in an eminent 
degree, even god-like honors were the reward. 
In this day and generation, therefore, in this 
capital city of this greatest of the sisterhood of 
States, near the spot where he was born, it is 
just and proper that this high tribute of respect, 
honor and veneration should be paid by the 
citizens of Albany, by the people of the State, 
as represented by the Senate and Assembly, to 
the memory of General Philip H. Sheridan, com* 
mander of the armies of the United States, 



%\x IJfccttxoriam. 



He succeeded in this high station men who 
have added equal lustre to the history of their 
country, and whose names shall appear forever 
with his in the firmament of American glory with 
the fixed and unfailing light of the everlasting stars. 
Scott and McClellan and Grant have passed away 
before him, and one alone of the illustrious com- 
manders-in-chief of our country's armies in her 
most troubled time remains among us, and is here 
to-night to do honor to the name and memory of 
his beloved comrade and most worthy successor. 

Sheeidan sleeps to-night far distant from this 
his place of birth, by the quiet waters of the great 
river whose name was immortalized by the magnifi- 
cent army of which he was a central figure. It was 
to that army and their brothers of the West and 
to the great men who directed our hosts, that we 
are indebted for the fact that this river continues 
to be a great artery of national life and of com- 
merce instead of becoming a limit and a boundary 
line, a token of discord and disunion. 

As long as its waters flow the name and 
example of Philip H. Sheeidan shall 

i " stand 
Colossal, seen of every land." 

The lesson of such a life can not be too often 
read, and I congratulate you that on this memo- 
rial occasion you will hear to-night in eloquent 

10 



C&cu. gMUp H. m&d&m. 



and touching words from the one most competent 
to tell it, the recital of his grand and magnificent 
achievements in a career all too brief for his 
country and for humanity. 

Fortunate is it for us to-day, and for all gen- 
erations to come, that such men have lived who 
were born to prove — 

" The path of duty was the way to glory : 

He that walks it only thirsting 

For the right and learns to deaden 

Love of self, before his journey closes, 

He shall And the stubborn thistle bursting 

Into glossy purples, which outredden 

All voluptuous garden roses. 

***** 

He that ever following her commands, 

On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 

Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 

His path upward and prevailed, 

Shall find the toppling crags of duty scaled 

Are close upon the shining table-lands 

To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 

Such was he: his work is done." 

In accordance with the instructions of the Com- 
mittee of Arrangements, the proceedings will be 
opened with Prayer by the Right Rev. Fkancis 
McNeieny, Bishop of Albany. 

Almighty, everlasting God, prostrate in Thy adorable 
presence, we acknowledge that Thou art the Creator 
and Maker and Lord of all things. We adore Thee. 
We humbly confess our dependence upon Thee. In 
Thee we live, in Thee we move, in Thee we have our 
being. Thou watchest over us with infinite, unceasing 



%\x B^cmovhtm. 



love and affection. In adversity Thou art ever our 
protector and comforter. In prosperity Thou art ever 
our abiding hope and trust. Deign make us ever worthy 
of Thy protecting and fostering care. 

As with the individual, so with the nation dost Thou 
deal most mercifully. With the breath of Thy love 
Thou hast called it into existence. Thou didst bless it 
with wise and prudent founders. Thou hast implanted 
in the breasts of its citizens a sense of right, a love of 
justice. Thou hast watched over its beginnings. Thou 
hast brought it, in a brief space of time, to a height of 
unparalleled prosperity. Thou hast, when its existence 
was endangered, either by attacks from without or by 
dissensions within, filled the hearts of its faithful 
children with love and devotion, and Thou hast raised 
from among them valiant men to defend its interests. 
Thou hast led them to victory, and when Thou didst 
make them victorious, Thou didst, too, inspire them 
with mercy and compassion for the vanquished. For 
all this, Oh Heavenly Father, we return loving thanks. 

Deign grant that encouraged by their example, we 

may ever walk in their footsteps — in the footsteps of 

him whose memory we meet here to celebrate on this 

solemn occasion. May the lessons taught by their 

example sink deeply into our souls. May they nerve 

us and all who will come after us to make and brave 

every sacrifice for the welfare of fatherland. Deign 

i 
mercifully hear the prayers of thy servants, that, the 

evil designs of our enemies being defeated, we may 

praise Thee with unceasing gratitude. 

Oh God, the protector of all that hope in Thee, 

without Whom nothing is strong, nothing holy, multiply 



CScu. gMXip p. ^Itcvictmt. 



upon us Thy mercy, that Thou being our ruler and 

guide, we may so pass through temporal things that 

we- may not lose those which are eternal, through 
Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 

General Wager Swayne then delivered the fol- 
lowing Memorial Address : 

There's one we love to call our own, 

Kenowned by sword and pen, 
His plume alone, where'er it shone, 

Was worth ten thousand men ; 
'Twas he snatched victory from defeat, 

Our hearts' commander still; 

Whene'er we meet, his name we'll greet, 

Our matchless Little Phil. 

[Col. Archie Hopkins. 

The breaking out of the Rebellion found 
Sheridan a First Lieutenant of Infantry, stationed 
at Yamhill, Oregon — then distant two months 
journey from the field of war. 

Of his situation there he says: 

« ^Ye received our mail at Yamhill once a week ; on 
the day that our courier or messenger was expected, 
* * * I would go out early in the morning to a com- 
manding point * * * and there I would watch with 
anxiety for his coming, longing for good news ; for, iso- 
lated as I had been through years spent in the wilderness, 
my patriotism was untainted by politics, nor had it been 
disturbed by any discussions of the questions out of which 
the war grew, and I hoped for the success of the govern- 
ment before all other considerations. * * * Out 
of a sincere desire to contribute as much as I could to 
the preservation of the Union, I earnestly wished to be 

13 



Ju UUcmoviam. 



at the seat of war. * * * I was young, healthy 
and insensible to fatigue, and desired opportunity, but 
high rank was so distant in our service that not a dream 
of its attainment had flitted through my brain." 

His first assignment to command of troops was 
May 25, 1862, when he was appointed Colonel of 
the Second Michigan Cavalry, then stationed at 
Corinth, Mississippi. His earlier service, since he 
was brought East the September previous, had 
been as Commissary and as Quartermaster. He 
was at Corinth at the time of his appointment, 
having been with Halleck's army in its movement 
to that place from Pittsburg Landing, a movement 
which had occupied the previous six weeks. 

The army which made this advance comprised 
nearly 100,000 men. The place in it assigned to 
Sheridan was as Staff Quartermaster — to remove 
the headquarters when directed — and as Staff 
Commissary, to provide the escort with rations 
and the officers with supplies. 

The idea of Shekidan there, assigned to no duty 
but the care of General Halleck's headquarters, 
is suggestive of strange contrast. It was this 
same Sheridan — desiring , opportunity, but not 
dreaming of high command — to whom Mr. Lincoln 
wrote, within the next three years : 

"For the personal gallantry, military skill, and just 
confidence in the courage and patriotism of your troops, 



mm. gMlip p. m&dfiLvm. 



displayed by you on the nineteenth day of October, at 
Cedar Run, whereby, under the blessing of Providence, 
your routed army was reorganized, a great national 
disaster averted, and a brilliant victory achieved over 
the rebels, for the third time within thirty days, Philip 
H. Sheridan is appointed a Major-General in the regular 
army." 

He was again in the far West and crossing the 
plains with an escort, when a courier brought 
him word that the President had nominated him 
to be Lieutenant- General. He read the dispatch, 
and turning to his staff officers said : " Boys, you 
will have to address me as Lieutenant- General 
now ! " Their hats all went up at once. 

He lay on his death-bed: when word came to 
him that the Congress of the United States — 
reviving in his honor the discontinued grade of 
General of the Army — had crowned him with the 
last reserve of military rank. 

After deducting for all happy accident, the fact 
remains that of 2,000,000 of men, culled from a 
people who abounded in every quality of excel- 
lence, called into the field from the North, three 
men, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, beyond all 
others, made themselves admired and dear to the 
armies and the people of the nation. Comparison 
between these is not simply inappropriate ; it is 
not merely impracticable; it is arrested on the 



%n ptemimam. 



threshold by the common ties and strong affection 
of the three which come in to remind us that 
invidious preferences between them are precisely 
what he who survives of them would most dislike, 
and that in this he shares the feeling, as he does 
the glory, of the dead. The voice of the people 
is, Grant, Sherman, Shekidan. It is the voice of 
the people, and it is enough. 

The youngest of these three, latest in prominent 
command, so met and dealt with the emergencies 
of war that neither mistake nor quarrel or defeat 
ever wasted the forces of his country or impeded 
the zeal of their employment. Nature had given 
him the qualities essential to a selfish excellence. 
He added to them such as to win affection and 
command respect. The personal ascendancy 
resulting made his whole command only himself 
enlarged, and where he willed it went with all 
his will, and did what in their place he would 
have done. This made his personality, of course, 
as great as the command at any time intrusted to 
him, and made his military service a distinct and 
priceless contribution to the welfare of the 
country. ■ 

It is the lesson of this life that we are here to 
learn. He was born here in Albany, March 6, 
1831. Because of this fact, and because of the 
high estimate in which his services are held, and 



16 



Cdeu. gfeittp p. jHtortclau. 



the affectionate regard with which his memory is 
cherished, the people of the State of New York, 
represented by their Senate and Assembly, with 
the approving and concurring presence of their 
Governor and their appellate judges, are here 
with us, and are here, as the resolution controlling 
me states, to the end that his memory be honored, 
and his qualities — their education and discipline, 
their operation and value — be set before the 
youth; the man himself revived in their remem- 
brance and our own. 

The lesson begins early. At fourteen years he 
was clerk in a country store in a village in Ohio. 
His services were in demand ; and his leisure was 
made to yield increase of intelligence. Twice in 
two years he was promoted to a different master, 
and to double wages. 

The strongest interest of that day was the 
existing war with Mexico. It was of doubtful 
right and consequence, and the secluded people 
of a country village had time to discuss it warmly. 
They often referred their disputes to the best 
authority at hand, the boy not yet of sixteen 
years, who was already bookkeeper of an extensive 
store. 

Directly from this situation may be traced, with 
growing plainness, those things in him, and their 
growth also, which gave him victory in the utmost 



%n ^ttmoximn. 



exigencies of his later life, and made him equal 
to its broadest scope. 

The situation in itself was not uncommon for a 
youth, nor the things done in it beyond the reach 
of ordinary powers. Emerson, however, says 
somewhere, that if one does things well, though 
his home be in a wilderness, a beaten path will 
by and by be trodden to his door. 

A little village in Ohio is not a conspicuous 
arena for well-doing, nor are the duties of a 
country store of a heroic character ; yet what 
Sheeidan did in that store and the life he led in 
that village did both lead the way and make the 
way for all his subsequent achievements. He was 
without influence or social standing, yet his own 
mere letter to his Congressman brought back by 
return mail an appointment to West Point for the 
youth whose qualities were known. It was these 
qualities, in turn, which made at once the man 
and his career. 

The qualities themselves arose and grew out of 
his sympathy with every part of any life with 
which he was concerned. Again and again 
throughout his life this shows itself in great 
things and in small, a sympathy too strong to rest 
in contemplation, too faithful to abide with the 
unreal, and too earnest to stop short of the last 
attainable result. 

18 



$cu. gMlip f$. jftfctridan. 



In the country store at Somerset he cared 
enough for his work to do it in a way that made 
his services competed for. He cared enough for 
his country to study its history with care. Its 
war with Mexico aroused his interest till his sole 
wish, as he writes, was to become a soldier, and 
this sent him to West Point. 

Probably this expresses the whole situation. He 
was not straining after what he might some day 
become, he was simply intent upon what he might 
do now. He did not enter West Point or com- 
mence duty with his company, looking upon 
either as a mere staging from which to build. 
Each was to him a story to be built, and for the 
time worthy of exclusive care. Probably it was 
this absorption in the things at hand that made 
the things at hand of such absorbing interest to 
him. 

His earliest military service was with a company 
of infantry upon the Rio Grande. That country 
was unsettled and almost unknown, and filled 
with Indians and wild animals. Its newness 
appealed to him, and his responsive interest led 
him to make maps of it in all directions. The 
Indians spoke a different language from his own; 
they interested him enough to make him learn 
that language. The presence of game invited him 
to hunt, and hunting interested him enough to 



19 



%u %$l£moximn. 



make him the purveyor of fresh meat for the 
command; not stopping with the mere pursuit of 
game, but learning all their habits and the ways 
of taking them ; even the colors of the birds 
became the subject of keen study, until crowded 
out by graver matters. The novelty of winter 
quarters sent him thirty miles across the prairies 
with a wagon to fetch poles to build a hut with 
fireplace and chimney, though exposure to the 
weather was habitual with him; and, above all 
things, his interest in the men whom he com- 
manded, made him, from first to last, their faithful 
and devoted servant, although none the less their 
absolute commander. 

"Sympathy," says Fichte, "is the secret of all 
insight;" and again and again this sympathy and 
insight crowned the faithfulness of Sheridan with 
glory and success. It is worth while to trace it 
in the way he speaks of his relations with the 
men, and notice how his heart was with them 
always, and their hearts, in turn, were his; and 
out of this came that which made him Sheridan. 

In Oregon he was for many months in charge of a 
detachment of dragoons, and of these men he writes : 

"When I relieved Hood — a dragoon officer of their 
own regiment — they did not like the change, and 
I understood that they somewhat contemptuously 
expressed this in more ways than one, in order to try 

20 



<5*u. tMtip §L Jtoridmx. 



the temper of the new ' Leftenant,' but appreciative and 
unremitting care, together with firm and just discipline, 
soon quieted all symptoms of dissatisfaction and over- 
came all prejudice. The detachment had been made up 
of details from the different companies of the regiment 
in order to give Williamson a mounted force, and as it 
was usual, under such circumstance, for every company 
commander to shove into the detail he was called upon 
to furnish the most troublesome and insubordinate 
individuals of his company, I had some difficulty, when 
first taking command, in controlling such a medley of 
recalcitrants; but by forethought for them and their 
wants, and a strict watchfulness for their rights and 
comfort, I was able in a short time to make them 
obedient and the detachment cohesive. In the past 
year they had made long and tiresome marches, forded 
swift mountain streams, constructed rafts of logs or 
bundles of dry reeds to ferry our baggage, swum deep 
rivers, marched on foot to save their worn out and 
exhausted animals, climbed mountains, fought Indians, 
and in all and everything had done the best they could 
for the service and their commander. The disaffected 
feeling they entertained when I first assumed command 
soon wore away, and in its place came a confidence 
and respect which it gives me the greatest pleasure to 
remember, for small though it was this was my first 
cavalry command. They little thought, when we were 
in the mountains of California and Oregon, nor did I 
myself then dream that but a few years were to elapse 
before it would be my lot again to command dragoons, 
this time in numbers so vast as of themselves to 
compose almost an army." 



%\x UtcMorutm. 



In the same spirit with these remarks he writes 
of that Michigan regiment which was his first 
command in the war : 

"Although but a few days had elapsed from the date 
of my appointment as Colonel of the Second Michigan 
to that of my succeeding to the command of the 
brigade, I believe I can say with propriety that I had 
firmly established myself in the confidence of the 
officers and men of the regiment, and won their regard 
by thoughtful care. I had striven unceasingly to have 
them well fed and well clothed, had personally looked 
after the selection of their camps, and had maintained 
such a discipline as to allay former irritation. 

"Men who march, scout and fight, and suffer all the 
hardships that fall to the lot of soldiers in the field, in 
order to do vigorous work must have the best bodily 
sustenance, and every comfort that can be provided. I 
knew from practical experience on the frontier that my 
efforts in this direction would not only be appreciated, 
but requited by personal affection and gratitude ; and 
further that such exertions would bring the best 
results to me. Whenever my authority would permit 
I saved my command from needless sacrifices and 
unnecessary toil ; therefore, when hard or daring work 
was to be done I expected the heartiest response, and 
always got it. Soldiers are averse to seeing their com- 
rades killed without compensating results, and none 
realize more quickly than they the blundering that 
often takes place on the field of battle. They want some 
tangible indemnity for the loss of life, and as victory 
is an offset the value of which is manifest, it not only 



G5ew. SMItp gt. J>TtevicT<ui. 



makes them content to shed their blood, but also 
furnishes evidence of capacity in those who command 
them. My regiment had lost very few men since 
coming under my command, but it seemed, in the eyes 
of all who belonged to it, that casualties to the enemy 
and some slight successes for us had repaid every 
sacrifice, and in consequence I had gained not only 
their confidence as soldiers, but also their esteem and 
love as men, and to a degree far beyond what I then 
realized." 

When he was ordered from the West to the 
Army of the Potomac, his whole command was 
gathered on the hillside to bid him a last adien 
as his train took its departure. He himself tells 
us why this was: 

"In Kentucky, nearly two years before, my lot had 
been cast with about half of the twenty-five regiments 
of infantry that I was just leaving, the rest joining me 
after Chickamauga. It was practically a new arm of the 
service to me, for although I was an infantry officer, 
yet the only large command which up to that time I 
had controlled was composed of cavalry, and most of 
my experience had been gained in this arm of the 
service. I had to study hard to be able to master all 
the needs of such a force, to feed and clothe it and 
guard all its interests. When undertaking these 
responsibilities I felt that if I met them faithfully 
recompense would surely come through the hearty 
response that soldiers always make to conscientious 
exertion on the part of their superiors, and not only 

23 



Jn Ipcmcrciam. 



that more could be gained in that way than from the 
use of any species of influence, but that the reward 
would be quicker. Therefore, I always tried to look 
after their comfort personally, selected their camps, 
and provided abundantly for their subsistence, and the 
road they opened for me shows that my work was not 
in vain." 

So of the termination of that famous ride from 
Winchester to Cedar Creek, he says : 

" At Mill Creek my escort fell in behind and we were 
going ahead at a regular pace, when just as we made 
the crest of the rise beyond the stream, there burst 
upon our view the appalling spectacle of a panic- 
stricken army. * * My first thought was to 
stop the army in the suburbs of Winchester as it came 
back, form a new line and fight there ; but as the 
situation was more maturely considered, a better con- 
ception prevailed. I was sure the troops had confidence 
in me, for heretofore we had been successful ; and as at 
other times they had seen me present at the slightest 
sign of trouble or distress, I felt I ought now to try to 
restore their broken ranks, or, failing in that, to share 
their fate because of what they had done hitherto." 

In September, 1886, in a little speech made at a 
soldiers' reunion, held , at Creston, Iowa, he 
expressed more plainly than ever his own view 
of his relation to the men of his command : 

" I want to say to you, comrades, this, that I am 
indebted to the private soldier for all of this credit that 

24 



Gen. ItttXip SL m&d&m. 



has come to me. He is the man who did the fighting, 
and the man who carried the musket is the greatest 
hero of the war, in my opinion. I was nothing but an 
agent. I knew how to take care of men, I knew what a 
soldier was worth, and I knew how to study the 
country so as to put him in the right. I knew how 
to put him in a battle when one occurred, but I was 
simply the agent to take care of him ; he did the work. 
Now, comrades, these are common sense things, and I 
can't say them in very flowing language, but they are 
true nevertheless, and they are true not of me alone, 
but of everybody else. It is to the common soldier 
that we are indebted for any credit that came to 
* * There are many men here to-day 



us. 



* 



who served in the field with me, and it is a great 
pleasure to me to find them out, and they have been 
very kindly in their remarks to me. While they were 
with me, I certainly did all I could for them. I often 
laid awake planning for their welfare, and I never 
killed a man unnecessarily. You may kill as many men 
as you choose, if you give them an equivalent for the 
loss. Men do not like to be killed for nothing. They 
do not like to have their heads rammed against a stone 
wall, unless for some good result. * 
Whenever I took men into battle, I gave them victory 
as the result of the engagement, and that was always 
satisfactory." 

Is it any wonder that General Grant wrote of 

this man: 

"As a commander of troops, as a man capable of 
doing all that is possible with any number of men, 



%u %$tzmoximn. 



there is no man living greater than Shemdan. I rank 
him with Napoleon and the great captains of history. 
He had a magnetic quality of swaying men which I 
wish I had." 

Once only he is known to have stopped to ask 
if that which must be done must needs be done 
at once. On the eve of that grand review at 
Washington with which the war was closed, he 
was ordered to start for Texas. That meant that 
he should never lead his old command again. 
There was no help for it, and he left the capital 
two days before the grand review. 

In the same way his familiar interest in men 
made him unerring in the choice of scouts. 

He says of himself, when ordered from Corinth 
to Louisville to join Buell's army: 

"Before and during the activity which followed his 
reinstatement, General Grant had become familiar with 
my services through the transmission to Washington of 
information I had furnished concerning the enemy's 
movements, and by reading reports of my fights and 
skirmishes in front, and he seemed loth to let me go." 

The following, written of him at a later date, 
doubtless expresses the view of General Grant : 

" His scouts were famous throughout the army, and 
their information was exact ; it was always relied upon 
by Grant as absolute, and it never deceived him." 



<B*H. WMXiP H- JftettftKu. 



The result of this was, that whoever fought him 
must do so without any concealment of the force 
about to be employed or of the time and manner 
of attack. 

His dealings with these men were in sympa- 
thetic interest not unlike his dealings with his 
troops, and their intrepid faithfulness was his 
reward. 

After the war, in his smaller commands, the 
same solicitude for his men is continued, and with 
the same result. In December, 1868, from his camp 
out on the plains, he wrote to General Sherman: 

" We have had fearful storms, for a day or two, with 
snow. Some of the men burned out their boots during 
the cold weather and substituted nose-bags. When the 
trains come in we will have shoes for them. The com- 
mand is in high spirits and enthusiastic ; everybody in 
good humor and jolly. 

"Please tell Tommy I have a small-sized Indian 
pony for him which I hope to get in. He is a buster, 
and very gentle." 

He wrote to General Sherman, also, when the 
latter was just starting off for Europe, in 
November, 1871: 

"If you can occasionally drop me a line it will give 
me so much pleasure. * * * I will stick close 
to my duties here and will endeavor to make things go 
straight enough to give you no uneasiness so far as I 
am concerned." 

27 



%n ptewcrriam. 



General Pope also lately wrote of him: 

"In 1870 I was brought into intimate official and 
personal relations with him, which lasted without 
interruption for fourteen years. * * I am 

glad to say that the close friendship and intimacy 
which marked our association almost from the beginning 
remained unimpaired to the day of his death. In his 
private life he was as simple as a child, and found the 
happiest part of it in his home with his delightful wife 
and children, whom he loved with an unusual tender- 
ness. He was hospitable to a degree, and his house 
was always a resort of his army friends, and indeed of 
anybody who knew him. Naturally he was a man of 
strong feelings and convictions ; and I suppose he 
thought himself capable of equally strong hatred, but 
although I have known him to say severe things about 
individual people, I do not believe he ever cherished 
animosity toward any human being. Towards the 
officers and soldiers under his command he was always 
kind and considerate, and to their comfort and welfare 
always alive. He could always be relied on to sustain 
his subordinates in any well-meant action, even against 
the highest officials of the government ; and his troops 
had that confidence in him and reliance on him which 
is half the battle in the administration of a great 

military command. There never was a commander 

i 
more popular, nor one that has been more regretted. 

In any of the great kingdoms of Europe, with the 

constant opportunities they offer for military careers, 

Shekidan would have been a foremost figure in the 

military hierarchy of the world." 



$cu. Iftitip gL Jfoevictatt. 



If this all-pervading sympathy and its recip- 
rocal good-will, with their abundant fruit, had 
been the unimpeded course of a strong nature 
that was nothing but congenial, we should have 
to class that nature as partaking of the super- 
natural, and should find less in it to encourage 
youth or quicken men. The truth is opposite to 
this. The boy was a natural boy, full of strong 
impulse, often uncontrolled. The wife of General 
Sherman had her early education in a convent 
nearly across the street from the house in which 
the schoolboy Sheridan lived. She often spoke 
of the two little boys, his brother and himself, 
whose pranks she vividly remembered. He tells 
us himself he was not without experience in 
what is called "playing hookey," and that the 
incidental penalties of that fascinating occupation 
were not absent from his case. 

There must have been a struggle when these 
things gave way before the sturdy industry that 
won increase of wages in the store and the 
bookkeeper's faithful accuracy. 

His stay at West Point showed again what he 
had in his nature to contend with. A fellow 
cadet in the course of duty gave him an affront. 
He started at once to bayonet the offender. Self- 
control came in time to prevent this, but had not 
force enough to keep him from attacking with 



%n DUcmorUtw. 



his fists. This cost him nine months' suspension 
and postponed his graduation for a year. 

In pleasant contrast with this last, it may be 
told that in his later life, at Washington, at the 
headquarters of the army, there hung up in his 
private room a portrait of himself, which his wife 
did not admire. He declined to reconsider his 
conclusion to send that picture to an exhibition 
in New York, to which he had been asked to 
send a portrait of himself. It was at breakfast 
the matter came up, and was disposed of with a 
word or two. That morning Mrs. Sheridan rode 
with the General to headquarters to "do a little 
shopping" in the neighborhood. She shopped 
for a little black paint, and the General being at 
that hour elsewhere, she had the picture taken 
down, and painted out the face. Telling the 
horrified attendant simply to say that she had 
done it, she finished up her shopping. Dinner 
passed cheerfully without the slightest reference to 
the occurrence. Nor was it ever mentioned after- 
wards, except that four years later, in discussing 
some paintings, the General remarked, with a 
twinkle in his eye, "By the way, Irene, you are 
something of a painter yourself ! " 

The army opposed to Halleck's march on 
Corinth was known to be not more than half as 
large as his own. There was never any serious 



Often. gMlia gL gUMd&xu. 



resistance, and Corinth when reached was found 
empty. The distance traversed was only twenty 
miles over a country not unfavorable, yet this one 
hundred thousand men "consumed," as Sherman 
says, " all of the month of May, the most beautiful 
and valuable month of the year for campaigning 
in this latitude ; we fortified almost every camp at 
night, although we had encountered no oppo- 
sition except from cavalry, which gave ground 
easily as we advanced." 

The overcaution and snail's pace of this advance 
galled even the private soldiers of that army, and 
evoked both ridicule and criticism ; but Sheridan 
has no complaint to make. 

He writes : 

"My stay at General Halleck's headquarters was 
exceedingly agreeable, and my personal intercourse with 
officers on duty there was not only pleasant and instruct- 
ive, but offered opportunities of instruction and advance- 
ment for which hardly any other post could have afforded 
like chances. My special duties did not occupy all my 
time, and whenever possible I used to go over to General 
Sherman's division, which held the extreme right of our 
line in the advance on Corinth, to witness the little 
engagements occurring there continuously during the slow 
progress which the army was then making, the enemy 
being forced back but a short distance each day." 

Within the next three months this industrious 
infantry captain had with eight hundred cavalry 

31 



%n Iptemtfriam. 



defeated six times their number, and with that 
introduction ushered in his crowd of victories. 
It was he also of whom General Grant wrote: 

"He in fifteen days, passed entirely around Lee's army; 
encountered his cavalry in four engagements and 
defeated him in all ; recaptured four hundred Union 
prisoners and killed and captured many of the enemy ; 
destroyed and used many supplies and munitions of 
war, destroyed miles of railroad and telegraph, and 
freed us from annoyances by the cavalry of the enemy 
for more than two weeks." 

His first fight was at Booneville, Mississippi, 
where he was on outpost duty with two regi- 
ments of cavalry, eight hundred and twenty- 
seven (827) men. The cavalry force which 
attacked him were between five and six thousand. 
A few hours later they were scattered, leaving 
him master of the field. 

It was after this single battle that Rosecrans 
and his other superior officers applied at once for 
his promotion, saying over their signatures that 
he was "worth his weight in gold." 

His weight, by the way, was scarcely enough 
for a woman. He speaks of himself as he stood 
before the Secretary of War, when he came East 
to join the Army of the Potomac: "I was rather 
young in appearance, looking even under rather 
than over thirty -three years — but five feet five 

32 



mm. gffcfltp ?J. JTteritlaw. 



inches in height, and weighing only one hun- 
dred and fifteen pounds." 

His body, however, was so long that when on 
horseback he presented the appearance of a man 
six feet two. 

His head, also, was of such a shape that the 
ease with which his hat came off had given him 
the habit of frequently riding with it in his hand, 
and so of using it for gesture on occasion. 

It was not, however, merely for the fight at 
Booneville that promotion came to him imme- 
diately. Their recommendation says: 

"His Ripley expedition has brought us captured 
letters of immense value, as well as prisoners, showing 
the rebel plans and dispositions, as you will learn 
from District Commanders." 

We have seen already how upon the plains he 
was the hunter and geographer of the command. 
" It always came rather easy to me," he writes, 
" to learn the geography of a new section, and its 
important topographical features as well." "As 
soon as possible," he writes of himself at Boone- 
ville, "1 compiled for the use of myself and my 
regimental commanders an information map of 
the surrounding country. This map exhibited 
such detail as country roads, streams, farm 
houses, fields, woods and swamps, and such other 
topographical features as would be useful." 

-33 



%\x %$tmxoximn. 



How vast the service which this habit rendered 
afterwards to the country and himself is seen in 
his report to the Committee on the conduct of 
the war. 

" After careful study of the topography of the 
country from the Kapidan to Bichmond, which is of 
thickly wooded character, its numerous and almost 
parallel streams nearly all uniting, forming the York 
River, I took up the idea that our cavalry ought to 
fight the enemy's cavalry, and our infantry the enemy's 
infantry." 

The result of this knowledge of the country, 
at once intimate and practical, was, of course, 
that whoever fought him had not only as we have 
seen to meet him fully prepared, but also to 
fight him where he was perfectly at home. 

The same fullness of knowledge extended to the 
procuring, handling and distribution of supplies. 
His early training as bookkeeper had doubtless 
made him efficient both as Quartermaster and as 
Commissary, and his experience in both depart- 
ments many a time, no doubt, assisted him in 
caring for his men as he so loved to do. 

In this connection it \s pleasant to know that, 
familiar as he was with all arms of the service, 
and practically experienced in both staff depart- 
ments, while visiting Europe in 1870 to observe 
the Franco-Prussian war, he wrote back from 

34 



Gfou. IJMXtp §L M»fttxu\<m. 



Barleduc, France, then the headquarters of the 
Prussian army, most encouragingly of our service : 

" I therefore went back via Sedan to Brussels, then 
to Switzerland, Southern Germany, and across to 
Vienna, then down to Hungary, then down the Danube 
to Servia, Wallachia, and Bulgarian Turkey, visiting 
Bucharest, the capital of Boumania, thence crossed the 
Black Sea to Constantinople. From Constantinople I 
visited Greece, from thence I went to Sicily, then up 
to Naples. On this trip I saw the soldiers of all these 
countries, saw much of the people, and was most 
politely and charmingly received everywhere, although 
not seeking anything of the kind, in fact avoiding it, 
because I wanted as much personal liberty as possible 
so that I might see as much as I could in the short 
space of time I had given myself. I reached Borne on 
the evening of the twenty-fourth, and will work my way 
back to Paris, but not before the surrender. I do not 
know whether you will approve this trip of mine, but I 
never expect to see Europe again and could not resist 
the temptation to make it. I am fully satisfied that 
there is no nation in Europe which has so perfect an 
army system as ourselves ; they have more perfect 
systems for raising troops, but I am satisfied their 
staff systems are not so good as ours. 

"I will start home in the latter part of February if 
possible. I would like to visit St. Petersburgh, but am 
afraid I should not remain so long absent. 

" I find that but little can be learned here to benefit 
our service. We are far ahead in skill and campaign 
organization. Europe is far ahead of us only in the 

35 



%\x Ufccmovxam. 



military organization that makes nearly every man a 
soldier, and the facility of that organization in quickly 
putting hundreds of thousands into the field. So far as 
organization for reclothing, transportation of supplies, 
and general comfort of the troops, we are so far ahead 
as to make comparison almost ridiculous." 

One other thing he knew, and knowing did. He 
knew the value of drill, and every considerable 
rest was utilized. His command, therefore, was 
not merely well fed, well clothed, well cared for; 
it also was well drilled. 

These were the individual qualities, therefore, 
he brought as his own contribution to the work 
of each command he was intrusted with. 

He knew how to care for his men in food and 
clothing, camps and drill; he knew the country 
to be fought in and the forces and manoeuvres of 
the enemy; he knew his men also, and knew 
these things, all of them, as things are known, 
which one has worked at with strong sympa- 
thetic interest and is perfectly at home with. 
That sort of interest it is which makes a man 
spontaneously industrious, and all these were, of 
course, the fruits of industry. Among the 
glimpses of his West Point life is one of his 
window darkened at night with a blanket that 
he might pursue his studies after the lights were 
ordered out. It is written of Jeroboam that he 

36 



®m. gMtip §t. M>K&d&Mi. 



was "a mighty man of valor." "And Solomon, 
seeing the young man, that he was industrious, 
he made him ruler over all the charge of the 
house of Joseph." The wisdom of Solomon is 
supplemented by the inspiration of St. Paul, 
whose precept to all rulers is, "with diligence." 

At a later day General Sheridan went with 
General Grant on a trip to Mexico. One of his 
staff officers tells me that he came back with 
knowledge enough of Mexico, its topography and 
geography, its people and their institutions, to 
have taken charge, if need be, of that country 
and intelligently governed it. 

All these features of his varied information — 
his knowledge of the country in which at any 
time he fought, his shrewd selection of scouts, 
his knowledge of his men, his constant provision 
for their comfort when in camp, were but so 
many aspects of his own personal interest in the 
life that was around him. By all of these means 
that interest made victory easier, and gave him 
freedom from mistake, and larger range, and 
quicker knowledge of the things that might, or 
must be done. 

Behind these lay a higher quality that was the 
final feature of the man. It is not easy to pass 
confidently to this next and last essential of that 
character (for it was character) that gave him 



%\x gtoemmtfam 



victory where defeat was natural, and so gave to 
his own worth the value of the difference between 
victory and defeat. It is not a merely imaginative 
exercise to discern how from the very first his 
earnest interest in the life at hand fostered at 
once this confidence and power. In the store 
and on the plains it had led (perhaps driven) him 
to know the things about him, and to make the 
knowing incidental only to the doing. The habit 
came with this of doing in a way that is akin 
to driving. The forward impulse thus became 
habitual, and brought with it an experience of 
decision. The habit of deciding what to do and 
doing it, needs only to be prepared by circum- 
stances and tempered by unselfishness to grow to 
any opportunity. At Booneville, capture seemed 
to be inevitable; at Cedar Creek his army was 
already routed, when his famous ride brought 
him upon the field. Plainly, it was not any of 
the things he knew that chiefly gave him triumph 
over both of these emergencies. It was his 
keeping to that wondrous way that leads between 
the recklessness that does not think, and hesi- 
tancy that mistakenly regards disaster as a 
greater evil than default. It was this way of 
looking at things, and of thinking, which, at 
Booneville and at Cedar Creek, led him away 
from what might happen, and had happened, to 

38 



<5en. gMIip H. jWwrlforo. 



where he saw only the things that might be done. 
The things he knew helped him, as I have said ; 
the difference in each instance between victory 
and defeat lay mainly in the fact that, instead of 
yielding to the backward impulse of the situation, 
he drove it with a forward impulse moving from 

himself. 

For this he must first have been cool enough 
to think. 

Napoleon says with regard to this: 

" The first quality of a General-in-Chief is to be cool- 
headed, to estimate things at their just value ; he must 
not be moved by good or bad news. The sensations 
that he daily receives must be so closed in his mind 
that each may occupy its appropriate place. Reason 
and judgment are only the result of the comparison of 
well weighed ideas."* 

I do not know how I can better express the 
truth as to the character of Shekidan in this 
regard than by quoting again from General Pope : 

" Before I came to know him by personal association 
I shared what was then (as I believe it is now with 
most of his countrymen) the opinion that he was simply 
an impetuous, reckless soldier, full of dash and gallant 
to the extreme of rashness ; in short, simply a splendid 
specimen of a cavalry officer of the ' Murat ' order. 

" There never was a greater mistake. Impetuous he 
was, certainly, but it was only impetuous execution 

* From a translation by Lieut.-Colonel A. K. Arnold, U. S. A. 

39 



%n IPcmoriam. 



of deliberate and well considered plans. In all his 
life he did not do any important act without careful 
consideration beforehand. Neither in civil administra- 
tion in time of profound peace, nor in the roar and fury 
of battle, did he ever act except on well defined lines 
and clearly conceived purposes." 

His coming on the field at Cedar Creek after 
his ride from Winchester has often been regarded 
as a species of apocalypse, immediately succeeded 
by a rush and charge like the repulsion of a great 
wave by a rock; and his careening down his line 
before the charge is spoken of as if that were the 
first thing he did and its essential feature. He 
himself says of his first appearance on the field: 

" As I continued at a walk a few hundred yards 
further, thinking all the time of Longstreet's telegram 
to Early : ' Be rea'dy when I join you, and we will crush 
Sheridan,' I was fixing in my mind what I would do." 

He says of himself a short time afterward : 

" I had already determined to attack the enemy from 
that line as soon as I could get matters in shape to 
take the offensive." 

His riding down the line did not occur to him 
until it was suggested to him by Major Forsyth. 
He says : 

" Major Forsyth now suggested that it would be well 
to ride along the line of battle before the eoemy 
assailed us, for although the troops had learned of my 



C§eu. gMUp SJ. mtvitlmx. 



return, but few of them had seen me. Following his 
suggestion I started in behind the men, but when a 
few paces had been taken I crossed to the front, and, 
hat in hand, passed along the entire length of the 
infantry line ; and it is from this circumstance that 
many of the officers and men who then received me 
with such heartiness have since supposed that was my 
first appearance on the field. But at least two hours 
had elapsed since I reached the ground." 

Closely allied to this was that in him which 
brought about that neither being outnumbered, 
as at Booneville, nor cruel losses, as at Perryville, 
could drive him from the field he thought he 
ought to hold. "Before ceding victory, wait 
until it is snatched from you," said Napoleon, 
" before retiring, wait until you are forced." 
General Grant's well-remembered letter to his 
father is to the same effect. He wrote to him 
from before Vicksburg that he did not think an 
army under him would often be defeated, for the 
reason that he should not accept the fact until 
the last hope was gone. The ground upon which 
Shekidan often and expressly puts this, is that 
the ground once lost must be recovered at the 
cost of lives of officers and men; and that in war 
the only real compensation for the loss of life is 
victory. In this he shows again his old-time 
sympathetic interest in the life in which he was 
concerned. 



%\\ fj&cmariam. 



The same view doubtless made him feel that 
the last results of victory must be gathered. I 
am told by General Dodge, who knew both 
officers extremely well, that General Grant did 
not enjoy the willingness of General Sheridan to 
be relieved from his command at Corinth, and to 
go to General Rosecrans in Tennessee, and was 
not cordial towards him until at Mission Ridge he 
witnessed Sheridan's division, not merely carrying 
the ridge, but pressing the pursuit far in advance, 
and until stopped by night. All feeling then 
became supplanted by fixed admiration, so that 
when Halleck afterwards suggested Sheridan for 
Chief of Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, it 
cost General Grant no effort to reply, "He is the 
very man I want." 

It is pleasant to see that this earnestness was 
really humane. In his report to the Committee 
on the Conduct of the War, he says, doubtless 
with reference to the valley of the Shenandoah, 
"I do not believe war to be simply that lines 
should engage each other in battle, as that is 
only the duello part, a part which would be kept 
up so long as those who live at home in peace 
and plenty could find the best youth of the 
country to enlist in their cause (I say the best, 
for the bravest are always the best), and there- 
fore do not regret the system of living on the 



42 



<£*w. ^Mtip £$. Jfaevttfem. 



enemy's country. These men and women did not 
care how many were killed or maimed so long 
as war did not come to their door. But as soon 
as it did come in the shape of loss of property, 
they earnestly prayed for its termination. As 
war is punishment, and death the maximum pun- 
ishment, if we can, by reducing its advocates to 
poverty, end it quicker, we are on the side of 
humanity." In the same spirit in 1886, he wrote 
to General J. B. Gordon with regard to a national 
home for disabled Confederate soldiers: 

"It is not proposed by your communication, nor by 
the circular, that the government should take any steps 
in this direction. Such private effort as is found best 
suited to the situation may, however, be made by every 
citizen. * * * It would give me great satis- 
faction to aid, in an humble way, the brave men who 
opposed us in battle." 

How natural that a great soldier with this 
generous mind should forecast in heart the day 
when war shall be supplanted by the contests of 
opinion and the sympathies. At Philadelphia, in 
1887, at the centennial of the signing of the Con- 
stitution, he gave his judgment of the large result 
to come from the progressive increase in efficiency 
in weapons : 

"There is one thing that you should appreciate, and 
that is that the improvement in guns and in the 

43 



%u 3$tewxrviaw. 



material of war, in dynamite and other explosives, and 
in breech-loading guns, is rapidly bringing us to a 
period when war will eliminate itself ; when we can no 
longer stand up and fight each other in battle, and 
when we will have to resort to something else. Now, 
what will that ' something else ' be ? It will be arbi- 
tration. I mean what I say when I express the belief 
that if any one now present here could live until the 
next centennial he would find that arbitration will rule 
the world." 

God grant he see it at that day from everlasting 
life! 

It is not necessary to an estimate of Sheeidan 
to catalogue or to delineate his triumphs, or to 
contrast his share of prominence with those of 
others in suppressing the rebellion. The battles 
of the Opequan (or Winchester) and Fisher's 
Hill, and Cedar Creek, his career in the Valley of 
the Shenandoah, these are familiar history. Of 
the close of the war it is enough to recall that 
it was he who rode on the thirtieth of March 
eight miles through rain and mud knee deep to 
dissuade General Grant from letting rain and mud 
prevent the forward movement from commencing 
that same day. April second, three days later, 
at Dinwiddie, his command, on the right and 
rear of Lee's army, had cut off from that army 
Pickett's command, amounting almost to an army 
corps, and had at the same time cut off Lee from 



CSeu. ^Mtip g. m&d&xtt. 



Richmond and compelled him to leave Peters- 
burg. April sixth, three days later, at Sailor's 
Creek he had further depleted Lee's army by the 
capture of Ewell's corps, making prisoners six 
generals and nine or ten thousand men, with 
the further result of cutting off Lee's attempted 
retreat via Danville, so that the Lynchburgh 
route alone remained by which Lee might retreat 
before the Army of the Potomac in his front. All 
day the eighth of April his command was moving 
parallel with Lee's retreating columns and dashing 
in where opportunity appeared. The forays of 
the day gave him large captures, and night found 
him in advance of Lee's retreat, at Appomattox 
station, in possession of Lee's supply trains and 
astride the Lynchburgh railroad. All night long 
General Ord, with the Army of the James, and 
General Griffin with the Fifth corps, were hurry- 
ing to his aid. The day of Appomattox dawned 
upon Ord's troops just coming into line behind 
the cavalry of Custer. Lee made his last attack 
upon that cavalry, and as they separated to the 
right and left disclosing that the Lynchburgh 
road was held not by themselves alone, but by 
the Army of the James in force behind them, the 
struggle ended and Lee's flag of truce appeared 
in front of Custer's lines. To claim for this 
more than the simple facts and their necessary 



%u UXcmovmm. 



incidents of personal character and endeavor 
would be false to the memory of Sheridan, 
because so unlike him. 

To relate his public services immediately fol- 
lowing the war would be as much beyond my 
scope as to recount his victories. His task of 
bringing back to civil order and to real union, 
States which had not laid down the rebellion 
but had merely laid down their arms, his wise 
and energetic firmness, the wrath of Andrew 
Johnson and his recall of Shekidan, these are a 
part of public history. His first contact, how- 
ever, in New Orleans with the White League, 
then in control of Louisiana and determined on 
political control, brought out at once his courage 
and his kindliness, and on the new stage of civil 
life disclosed once more the value of his personal 
character to any cause he was connected with. 
The evening of the very day of his arrival at New 
Orleans a violent meeting, under the auspices of 
the White League, was held in the rotunda of the 
St. Charles Hotel. A stage had been improvised 
of dry goods boxes, and from this the orator 
addressed the mob, seeding to inflame their 
minds to the point of resistance to the "bloody 
Sheridan." The uproar penetrated the rooms 
occupied by the General, and was notice to him 
that he had a difficult and dangerous task before him. 



<g*u. gftilip g. Jturidaw. 



He said quietly he would like to take a look at 
the mob, and he believed he would go and get a 
cigar. Taking a small rattan cane, and telling 
Colonel Forsyth to put a pistol in his pocket 
and follow him, he started for the office of the 
hotel. As he slowly descended the great stair- 
way, the most violent of the orators was 
denouncing the Union General and calling upon 
his hearers to resist and thwart him. Suddenly 
some of those below caught sight of the compact 
figure on the stairs, and taking in its humorous 
aspect began to laugh. The orator, disturbed by 
the movement, looked round for the cause, and 
following the direction in which all eyes were 
turned, he, too, saw the General approaching 
with great deliberation, and leaping from the 
platform he fled from the hotel. 

My informant and other leaders were greatly 
alarmed for the safety ol the General, and as he 
made his way through the crowd they sur- 
rounded him to protect him from the more 
reckless spirits, well knowing that an assault on 
the representative of the government would lead 
to the destruction of the State. Sheridan, uncon- 
scious of this attention, made his way to the 
cigar stand, and, having bought and lighted a 
cigar, turned quietly round and surveyed the 
excited crowd with the most perfect composure. 



%n pXjemariam. 



The display of cool courage worked an instant 
revolution. The leaders of the league directly- 
addressed the General, and, expressing their 
admiration of what they had just witnessed, said 
frankly that they would like to confer with him 
with a view to reach a peaceful settlement. 

"Come to my rooms, gentlemen," said Sheridan, 
and, leading the way, he was soon pointing out to 
them the futility and danger to society of violent 
resistance to law. They discussed the situation 
far into the night, and did not separate until a 
plan had been formed, in which all acquiesced, 
for restoring order. "That display of courage," 
said my informant, " compelled instant admira- 
tion and confidence, and saved Louisiana from 
the horrors of a bloody strife." 

A less familiar episode, but of enormous con- 
sequence, came later. In monarchical Europe 
the breaking out of our Rebellion was seized 
upon as the downfall of self-government. 

The greatest of English historians did not hesi- 
tate to formally entitle a work as "A History of 
Federal Government from the foundation of the 
Achaian League to the disruption of the United 
States,"* and the Emperor of Charlatans, 
Napoleon the Little, full of the same faith, 
undertook to supplant the Republic of Mexico 

* Vol. I was published in 1863. The second has not yet appeared. 

48 



(ietx. JfMIip 3* ^Txjerirtmx. 



with a pseudo- empire, resting on a corps of 
the French army, appropriately commanded by 
Bazaine. The natural sympathy between this 
enterprise and the Rebellion made them at once, 
in utter violation of all neutral rights, reciprocal 
allies in everything but open war. The Rio 
Grande river and the ports of Mexico became the 
field of large exchanges of Confederate cotton for 
arms, munitions and supplies, such as materially 
strengthened the Rebellion and prolonged the war. 
No one more fully realized this than General 
Grant. As early as when General Sherman came 
to City Point, and General Sheeidan was also 
there, the course of the French was denounced 
as having made the war in Mexico inseparable 
from the Rebellion, and the French in Mexico 
our enemies in everything but open war. It is 
pleasant to know that this righteous indignation 
was eventually the means of driving out the 
French and of reviving the Republic. 

In the summer of 1865, the party of free gov- 
ernment in Mexico was overthrown and scattered, 
the Monarchists apparently supreme, and Maxi- 
milian traveling through his empire regulating the 
new social institutions. 

In the meantime, however, Sheeidan, in Texas 
and at New Orleans, had closed out the Rebellion. 
On the 25th of July, 1865, General Grant wrote 



%u %$tcmoxxmn. 



to him confidentially, as follows, with regard to 
the French in Mexico : 

* * * I have written my views to the President 
and had conversation with him on the subject. In all 
that relates to Mexican affairs he agrees in the duty we 
owe to ourselves to maintain the Monroe doctrine both 
as a principle and a security for our future peace. On 
the Rio Grande, or in Texas, convenient to get there, 
we must have a large amount of surrendered ordnance 
and ordnance stores, or such articles accumulating from 
discharging men who leave these things behind ; without 
special orders to do so, send none of these back, but 
rather place them convenient to be permitted to go into 
Mexico, if they can be got into the hands of the defenders 
of the only government we recognize in that country. 

It is a fixed determination on the part of the people 
of the United States, and I think myself safe in saying, 
on the part of the President also, that an empire shall 
not be established on this continent by the aid of 
foreign bayoriets. A war on the part of the United 
States is to be avoided, if possible; but, it will be better 
to go to war now, when but little aid given to the 
Mexicans will settle the question, than to have in pros- 
pect a greater war, sure to come if delayed until the 
empire is established. 

We want then to aid the Mexicans without giving 
cause of war between the tJnited States and France. 
Between the would-be empire of Maximilian and the 
United States, all difficulty can easily be settled by 
observing the same sort of neutrality that has been 
observed towards us for the last four years. 



<fcw. gMXip % mxtxuXmx. 



* * * With a knowledge of the facts before you, 
however, that the greatest desire is felt to see the 
Liberal government restored in Mexico, and that no 
doubt exists of the strict justice of our right to demand 
this, and enforce the demand with the whole strength 
of the United States, your own judgment gives you a 

basis of action that will aid you. 

***** *• 

Sheridan's personal memoirs show that he was 
already hard at work. He began by arresting a 
large migration of the ex-Confederates, whom the 
whole South was encouraging to join the forces 
of Maximilian. Troops were next gathered on the 
Rio Grande, and formal communication opened 
there with Juarez, and scouts were sent to osten- 
tatiously inquire what supplies Northern Mexico 
could furnish to the forces under Sheeidan. The 
direct effect of all this was that the French 
withdrew from Northern Mexico. The Liberals 
nocked in and there reorganized their army. 
Then cannon, small arms and ammunition enough 
in all, perhaps, for 50,000 men, were carelessly 
left by Sheridan along the Rio Grande, where 
the Liberals yielded to temptation and helped 
themselves at will. The Minister of France at 
Washington protested vigorously with just the 
same result that our protests achieved while yet 
the French in Mexico were helping the Rebellion. 
The Liberals and the Monroe doctrine were too 

51 



%\x gtcmariam. 



much for them, and the Republic rules in Mexico 
to-dny revived by the United States in partial 
compensation for the war of 1846. 

Two or three matters themselves far from inci- 
dental, can receive only incidental mention. 

It goes without saying that a sympathy so 
earnest, always exacting of itself results, pro- 
duced a character that rose above mere common 
honesty to high integrity of purpose. When he 
came east to the field of war from Oregon, his 
first assignments were as Quartermaster and as 
Commissary, in Missouri, and he came at once in 
contact with the pecuniary contaminations which 
at that time and place affected the supply depart- 
ment of the army. With him, to come in contact 
was to come in conflict with them, and the 
speedy result was his summary removal out of 
that military department. When, after the war 
he was sent to New Orleans and a subservient 
countenance of dishonest methods was required 
of him, in a protest which this drew from him 
with reference to the conduct of Governor Wells, 
he wrote to the Secretary of War, "I say again 
that he is dishonest, and that dishonesty is more 
than must be expected of me." Ten years after- 
wards he wrote to General Sherman from Chicago: 

I am and have always been faithful in thought and 
word to my lawful commander — even independent of 



tttti. gMtip g. *to»ttei«. 



the warm personal friendship and admiration I have 
for you. I have been repaid for all this by fairness 
in the exercise of your authority, and by reciprocal 
friendship. * * * I have built up my present 
division, have been connected with the great develop- 
ment of the country west of the Mississippi river by 
protecting every interest so far as in my power, and in 
a fair and honorable way, without acquiring a single 
personal interest to mar or blur myself or my 
profession. 

When he wrote of himself that at the begin- 
ning of the war he was desirous of opportunity 
but not dreaming of high rank, he stated the 
whole truth. When in May, 1862, he was 
appointed Colonel of the Second Michigan Cavalry, 
some one expressed to him the hope that the 
star of a brigadier was not distant in point of 
time. His reply was, "No, I thank you; lam 
now a colonel of cavalry, and have all the rank 
I want." Repeatedly afterwards he submitted 
without complaint to withdrawal of troops from 
his immediate command and to subordination of 
himself without any of those resulting quarrels 
which so often embittered the cooperating forces 
on either side during the war. In one instance 
this evoked a spontaneous tribute even from the 
taciturnity of General Grant. In the Valley of 
the Shenandoah Shekidan had been supreme. 
Flushed with the victories of the Opequan, of 

S3 



%u fp&jenuwfcutt. 



Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek, still when his 
work was done he at once moved his army east- 
ward to join the Army of the Potomac. General 
Grant met him with the remark that it was not 
often that an army commander would let go in 
that way his independence, adding that he should 
not suffer for it. A little army was made up for 
him consisting of the cavalry, and other troops 
from time to time assigned to him by General 
Grant. With this he compassed all his share in 
what was done thereafter. 

Having heard both General Grant and General 
Sherman speak freely with regard to his relieving 
General Warren, I may say that each expressed 
the same clear recognition both of the necessity 
and what created it. A caution that amounted 
to a want of faith in his superiors repeatedly led 
General Warren to reply to a command to move, 
with a demand to be assured that his flanks were 
protected, or that other duties incident to giving 
the command had been performed. More than 
once the delay thus arising resulted in a loss of 
the desired result amounting to a virtual dis- 
obedience in a gallant, skillful officer and noble, 
excellent man. General Sherman is my authority 
in saying that at Spottsylvania General Grant 
had this experience with General Warren in a 
way that fixed in his own mind a sense of the 



flfew. ITxilip g. jWterltfaw. 



necessity of acting at once upon any similar 
occasion, and that led him in advance of that 
occasion to give General Sheridan authority to 
do as he afterwards did at Five Forks. General 
Grant, indeed, had said to General Warren, 
"Warren, I think you ought to trust me for a 
few things." Sheridan's command was exposed 
to the whole of Lee's army. What was at once 
rapid and rash might be required of him at any 
moment and the fate of his command turn on its 
instant execution. He had to choose between 
the situation and the man. He never spared 
himself in such a choice. In his whole life 
there is nothing to show that he at any time mis- 
took his personal resentment for a sense of duty. 
This little grouping of facts has disclosed to us 
how a strenuous and sympathetic interest in any 
life with which he was concerned, by reason of 
its being strenuous enough to bring him to the 
outcome of results, first made a lad of fourteen 
busy and intelligent, and so both valued and 
respected. Next, how that self- same sympathetic 
interest, always pushing to the outcome, carried 
him into the service of his country and there 
qualified him with accomplishments which gave 
him personality and with confidence that gave 
him force. How the same feeling that so 
made him one with all the life about him made 



%n %$lzmoxim\x. 



him true to all of it, and how this truth and 
skill and confidence wrought out the life that 
brings us here for its commemoration. All these 
progressive glimpses of that life have shown no 
trace of fault not overcome. Let me say here 
with regard to nil de mortuis nisi bonum, that the 
great men of antiquity from whom that adage 
emanated were not fools nor insincere. Life is 
a process of assimilation, whether it be the life of 
consciousness or physical. When the loved and 
admired have left us, and we gather in com- 
memoration, that is but a seizing back from death 
of so much as we may before he has it safe in 
his deposit of oblivion. What we thus seize we 
store within ourselves, and influenced by it grow 
in our degree into its like. A second value then 
has come to it, in that our dead now lives again 
in us, the highest tribute gratitude and love can 
pay. What shall we seize from death then but 
that which is good? What image shall we build 
of a dead friend in our own lives except an 
image of him at his best, and stripped of every- 
thing which he would willingly have dropped? 
The men who made the maxim knew the grace 
of life that might be kept from death, and the 
new life that love could give the good things of 
the dead. This life that we have studied offers 
opportunity to say these things without embar- 



36 



C^eu. fMItp p. jHfc.ert.clmi. 



rassment, because it was — no, let me say it is — 
so fit to follow. A life that acted out its kindly 
sympathies, and proved that only this, done 
mightily and with judicious balance of all rights, 
is necessary to the character that rises to all 
needs — and if need be can handle armies or 
secure a pony for a boy — can retain equally 
the love of a charming family and of this great 
nation; this is the life, that in its death, may 
plead for other dead that only good may live 
concerning them. 

General William T. Sherman, who occupied a 
seat on the platform, with other distinguished 
guests, was called upon, and spoke as follows: 

Mr. Peesident, Ladies and Gentlemen. — Your 
committee most kindly invited me to attend these 
services weeks ago, and I then begged to be 
excused, because I had been present at General 
Sheridan's funeral and several other subsequent 
occasions in his honor. Indeed each recurring 
year I find myself more and more disinclined to 
attend public ceremonials at which I am certain 
to be called on to speak, when to refuse would be 
rude and unmannerly. Of course such compli- 
ments and applause as you have just exhibited 
can not be otherwise than grateful to an old 
soldier who has survived nearly all his war com- 

67 



%u fpfcmjovi&m. 



rades, but I will be frank to admit that my 
coming to Albany to-day was chiefly to hear my 
young friend General Wager Swayne, who in 
1865, in following me through the swamps of the 
Salkehatchie, in South Carolina, lost his leg by a 
bullet and amputation, but retained his brain and 
manhood, as you have just noticed in his tribute 
to his country and to one of its most heroic char- 
acters, General Philip H. Sheridan. If in the 
midst of his most busy professional life he could 
prepare such a paper and come here to deliver it 
to the people where Sheridan was born, surely 
I must claim no credit for coming from New York 
in the luxurious Wagner car. 

We had always claimed that Sheridan was born 
at Somerset, Ohio, about twenty miles from 
where General Swayne and I were born, but 
according to his memoirs recently published, he 
first saw light in this city of Albany, on the 6th 
of March, 1831, consequently he was eleven years 
younger than myself and nine years younger 
than Grant, so that when Sheridan was practicing 
"hookey" under Mr. McNally, "who did not 
spare the rod," I was already at West Point, 
and Grant was managing the bark mill in his 
father's tannery at Georgetown. 

Three youths more dissimilar in personal 
appearance, in physical and mental attributes 



58 



$ett. SMtip g. Jtocridatt. 



never existed than Grant, Sheridan and Sherman, 
whom General Swayne has described so elo- 
quently as the trinity of great leaders at the 
conclusion of our civil war. The simple explana- 
tion is that between them there never existed 
the least symptoms of jealousy, the bane of 
military and political life, but each recognized in 
the other the same common purpose to rescue 
the government by military force, cost what it 
might, from the dangers of dissolution, anarchy 
and national disgrace which then threatened it; 
and when that war was over, each in his appro- 
priate sphere of action hastened to assist in 
restoring the country to its normal condition of 
prosperity. 

General Sheridan has given to the world, in his 
admirable memoirs, his own account of the guid- 
ing events of his most brilliant career, and we 
have just heard from General Swayne the analysis 
of his private character, which demonstrates that 
when the crisis of his life came he had schooled 
himself for the occasion, so that results followed 
in natural but rapid order till he could lay aside 
his sword and sink into eternal rest, conscious 
that the beautiful banner which now adorns your 
hall floated on every foot of his beloved country. 

Again thanking you, Mr. President, and this 
vast audience, for close attention, I ask the 



%n %$lcmoximn. 



privilege not to trespass further on your time or 
proceedings. 

General R. A. Alger, of Michigan, through whose 
efforts Captain Sheridan was promoted to the 
Colonelcy of the Second Michigan Cavalry, who 
occupied a seat on the platform as an invited guest 
of the State, was called upon and spoke as follows: 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen. — I have 
listened with deep interest to the very able 
address delivered by General Swayne upon the 
life and character of General Sheridan. It seems 
to me but little more need be said here of this 
great man, and I shall take your time for but a 
moment. 

I presume the reason why I have been invited 
here to participate in this service is on account 
of my early connection with the General. 

General Swayne's address carries me back 
nearly twenty-seven years, when I first met 
General Sheridan at General Halleck's head- 
quarters, in front of Corinth, Mississippi, where 
he was acting simply as Quartermaster and Com- 
missary for headquarters, , when he was presented 
with the appointment as Colonel of the Second 
Michigan Cavalry. 

He was standing in front of his tent and looked 
like a very small man even for a Colonel. He 



Cfccu. gMlip % SttizMaxL 



was very short, and weighed about one hundred 
and thirty pounds. 

A year of war had passed and yet Captain 
Sheridan was scarcely known, certainly little 
thought of outside of the regular army circle, 
where he was, discharging his duties in this 
subordinate office. 

I have never seen a schoolboy more delighted 
than Captain Sheridan was when he received his 
appointment. It seemed to him, as he said him- 
self, that his fullest ambition was gratified. How 
little he knew his future. 

A peculiarity of General Sheridan through life 
was that he discharged his duties for the day 
without any seeming thought of his own personal 
future. He was not one of those men who looked 
beyond his present work for something to come, but 
was of the true type which attends to the present, 
letting the future care for itself so far as it con- 
cerned him personally, that is, his ambition seemed 
to be to discharge present duties instead of building 
air castles for the future. Of course we can not 
imagine what would have been his feelings had 
the veil of the future been lifted for him. 

He was a very modest man ; quiet in his 
intercourse with his men, whether of the rank or 
file. He was always a gentleman, always con- 
siderate for others. 



61 



%u IPtemoriaw. 



He had, however, one peculiarity. In battle 
his nature seemed to change entirely, and when 
one time after the war I said to him that I 
thought he was the ugliest man in a fight I ever 
saw, he musingly remarked, "I guess that was 
so; that was the way I always felt." It was not 
a pleasant thing to cross him during that time; 
neither did he ever wish for a suggestion from 
others. His orders were to be obeyed implicitly, 
and without the asking why. 

It seems strange as we look over the career of 
such a remarkable man and wonder what lies 
within them that is so different from the average 
man, and yet the fact remains. While it proves 
that opportunity has much to do with success, it 
also shows that success depends very much upon 
the man! 

Others had had greater opportunities than he, 
but lacked the ability to improve them. The life 
of such a man shows us what a determined pur- 
pose can do for any one who has the ability and 
is willing to put forth the energy in any cause. 

While many officers slept at night, Sheridan 
was always studying the maps of the country, 
making himself thoroughly acquainted with every 
road, path, swamp or highland, so that should the 
time come he would be thoroughly posted upon 
the topography of the country he was to operate 



62 



dim. fMIip 9. Jferiteti. 



upon. He seemed not to sleep at all. He was 
very quick in decision, determined in action, 
never allowing the enemy in battle to recoil from 
one blow, before he struck him again and again. 

To those of us who knew him personally, his 
memory will always be a most pleasant one. He 
never turned his back upon an enemy or a friend! 
He never allowed his name to be mixed up in 
financial schemes after the war, but as he said 
to me at one time in Washington during the last 
years of his life, "All I can leave my family is 
my name, and I will try and see that it is never 
tarnished." As we look around the country, 
with the great numbers of young men seeking 
fortunes, we can truthfully say to them that the 
example of Shekidan is a good one to follow. 

While, fortunately, there is not in this genera- 
tion the opportunity for men to distinguish 
themselves upon the field that there was from 
'61 to '65, yet the time has never been when so 
many fields in civil life were open as now. What 
the country needs is men for action. 

A very common expression from those who 
are struggling for wealth and place now-a-days, 
is, " There are not such opportunities as there used 
to be." This is a great mistake. There never 
were so many opportunities open for success as 
at the present time. 



$u D&jemxa*i<iw. 



The usual error young men fall into is that 
they are not satisfied with the outlook of to-day, 
but hearing of some "Eldorado" in some far-off 
State or territory, or of the success of others 
greater than their own, they leave what they 
have and seek another field only to be disap- 
pointed. They let go one hold before they get 
another! The true and only road to success is, 
first, integrity ; second, untiring zeal, and a determ- 
ination to stand by an undertaking until one 
succeeds. I thank you most sincerely for this 
cordial greeting, and will bid you good-night. 



64. 



nF n -0 »9« 



DW 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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